


Of Lightsabers and Frozen Peas

by ephemeralstark



Series: Peter gets hurt/sick [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Broken Bones, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Inappropriate use of a Lightsaber, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter is a dumbass, Protective Ned Leeds, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, google is not a doctor kids, peter breaks his arm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24286918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstark/pseuds/ephemeralstark
Summary: “Let me get this straight.” A painfully familiar voice said from the doorway to Ned’s bedroom and Peter couldn’t help but groan and let himself fall back on Ned’s bed, groaning more when the movement caused him further pain. “You broke your arm, did that-” Mr. Stark gestured to the mess of Lightsaber and tape “-and didn’t get real help because you’re embarrassed? Did I catch that right, Ted?”“Uh, yes,” Ned said, looking starstruck that Tony Stark was in his house, “that’s the thing that happened.”“Mr. Stark I-”“I don’t want to hear it.” Mr. Stark said firmly cutting off Peter. “I want you to get your ass downstairs and into the car that’s waiting, and I don’t want you to make a single excuse.”-Peter is dumb, Ned tries his best, and Tony would just like a kid that has some semblance of common sense.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Peter gets hurt/sick [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750486
Comments: 16
Kudos: 295





	Of Lightsabers and Frozen Peas

“Hold still Dude!” Ned said as he held onto Peter’s wrist and stopped him from wriggling away.

“It hurts!” Peter snapped. “You wouldn’t want someone poking and prodding at _you_.”

“I’m not the one who might have a broken arm.”

“It’s not broken.” Peter insisted, but he ceased his movements as they were sending agonising flashes of pain up his arm and into his shoulder.

“Tell that to Google.” Ned said as he let go of Peter’s arm and wheeled backwards in his desk chair so Peter could see his computer screen from where he was perched on the edge of the bed.

“Google, I don’t have a broken arm.” Peter said in a deadly serious voice despite the smile threatening at the corners of his mouth and the tear streaks on his cheeks from pain.

“Funny.” Ned said sarcastically as he scooted forward again. “Dude, I think we need to go to the hospital.”

“No way,” Peter said quickly, “just, Google how to fix a broken arm at home.”

Ned paused, turning to stare at Peter with an incredulous look, “you did _not_ just say that.”

“Come on, man, I can’t go to the hospital with my freaky spider DNA.” Peter insisted. “At least if I can do a little to fix it myself, my body should take care of the rest.”

“This is so stupid,” Ned commented as he typed out Peter’s request into Google with the look of a man walking to the gallows, “I was so excited to find out my best friend was Spider-Man, like genuinely so excited. Now look at me, acting like a complete dumbass.”

“Hey!” Peter protested. “That’s just a roundabout way of calling _me_ a dumbass.”

“Exactly,” Ned said, before sighing, “alright, so, Google says that you should immobilise it?”

“What does that mean?” Peter asked, leaning forward, and hissing under his breath as a sharp flash of pain radiated up his sore arm from the movement.

“Uh, I’m not sure, let me look.” Ned said, before typing away for a few more moments. “Ok, so it says to tie the injured arm to a something stiff like a rolled-up newspaper or a cane.”

“A cane?” Peter asked. “Where the hell are we going to get a cane?”

“ _Like_ a cane, but it also said a newspaper,” Ned said, “basically we just need something that won’t bend.”

“Dude!” Peter said with a flash of excitement.

“What?”

“A _Lightsaber!”_

“Are we gonna immobilise your broken arm with a plastic Lightsaber?” Ned asked himself before nodding. “Yeah, we are, this is gonna be so cool.”

“Yes!” Peter cheered before yelping at the jolt his cheer had caused.

“Alright, hold still.” Ned said.

Peter did as he was told while Ned held the Lightsaber against his not-broken totally broken arm and strapped it in place with a couple of his belts. Neither of them mentioned the fresh tears that had started to fall during the process or the way Peter occasionally whimpered and gritted his teeth to prevent anything louder coming through.

“If this wasn’t so painful, I would totally be fighting you using my arm.” Peter said, his voice coming out sounding strained. 

“A Lightsaber arm would be such a cool weapon.” Ned agreed.

“Not when your arm is injured though,” Peter said with a weak laugh, “then it’s just inconvenient.”

“Dude, we just strapped your arm with a _Lightsaber!”_ Ned reminded him, bringing his attention back to the important thing that was happening.

“We did this is so cool.” Peter breathed. “Right, what’s the next step?”

“Uhhh,” Ned looked back at the screen, “alright, we need to fasten it to your body.”

“Fasten it?”

“Yeah so it says we can tape it, or we could use a sling.” Ned muttered.

“Would a sling fit around my Lightsaber?” Peter asked. “That’s a sentence I never thought I would say.”

“Um.” Ned looked at Peter’s strapped arm appraisingly. “Probably not. So, I guess tape is our next option.”

“We’re taping my Lightsabered arm to my body?” Peter confirmed.

“I don’t have regular tape; can I interest you in some blue duct tape?”

“Dude yes!” Peter said. “The Lightsaber is red so with the tape it’ll be my Spidey colours.”

“ _Dude.”_

Peter gritted his teeth once more while Ned carefully taped his arm to his chest using large strips of duct tape.

“Does it feel like it’s helping?” Ned asked as he worked.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Peter admitted, “it’s more painful right now, but that might just be because you’re taping it.”

“Sorry,” Ned said, “right, how about now?”

He stepped away, and Peter paused considering it.

“It’s still really sore and achy,” he admitted, “but definitely more manageable than it was before.”

“Great!” Ned said cheerfully. “I mean this is still really stupid, but we seem to be doing it semi-right.”

“It’s better than the hospital.” Peter said. “they’d have too many questions.”

“True.” Ned said with a light shrug. “Speaking of which, how did you break your arm?”

“That’s not important.” Peter said.

“I disagree.”

“Come on, dude, is there anything else we should be doing right now?” Peter asked, looking past his friend to try and see the computer screen.

“Fine, but I’m not done asking,” Ned warned him, “there’s definitely a story that you’re trying to hide. Alright, next step is ice.”

“Ice?” Peter whined. “I’d rather not, you know how I feel about the cold.”

“Dude, you’re either getting frozen peas or I’m calling an ambulance.” Ned threatened.

“I love peas, why don’t I already have peas?” Peter asked. “Ned you’re a terrible friend, where are my peas?”

“You suck.” Ned announced as he stood to leave the room.

While he was away getting Peter’s peas, Peter looked at his arm carefully, taking in the strange contraption it had been enclosed in. How was he going to hide that from May? He could only hope that his bone would heal quickly, and he could remove the Lightsaber before he saw his Aunt the following morning.

“Here you go,” Ned called as he threw the peas over.

Peter made to grab them with his dominant hand, which was unfortunately taped to his chest, meaning the bag of frozen peas ended up hitting Peter’s face with a cold slap before falling to his lap.

“Dude, really?” Peter asked.

“Surprise.” Ned said.

Peter grabbed the peas with a shiver and held them against the taped mess that was his arm.

“Alright, we have Lightsaber, tape, and frozen peas, what now?” Peter asked.

“Do you feel like you’re in shock?” Ned asked.

“No.” Peter decided after a moment of consideration.

“Alright, well I suppose we don’t need to treat you for that, so the next step is going to the hospital.” Ned said.

“Next.”

“Peter…”

“No, Ned, we can’t, my DNA.” Peter said.

“What about speaking to Mr. Stark?” Ned asked. “He has an entire Med Bay, I’m sure there’s someone there who would be able to look over your arm and make sure we’ve done the right thing.”

“We Googled it.” Peter said.

“Exactly, dude, we don’t know how reliable that site is,” Ned said, “come on, Peter, you’re not stupid so stop pretending that you don’t realise how dumb this all is.”

“I know its stupid!” Peter snapped. “My arm is killing me and I can barely think about anything other than the pain I’m in, I know we shouldn’t be taking medical advice off of some stupid site that popped up while we were googling how to fix a broken arm, I know it’s broken and I know I’m screwed!” 

“Then let’s get help.” Ned said pleadingly.

“I can’t.” Peter said. “Ned, I really can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too embarrassing!”

“Let me get this straight.” A painfully familiar voice said from the doorway to Ned’s bedroom and Peter couldn’t help but groan and let himself fall back on Ned’s bed, groaning more when the movement caused him further pain. “You broke your arm, did that-” Mr. Stark gestured to the mess of Lightsaber and tape “-and didn’t get real help because you’re embarrassed? Did I catch that right, Ted?”

“Uh, yes,” Ned said, looking starstruck that Tony Stark was in his house, “that’s the thing that happened.”

“Mr. Stark I-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Mr. Stark said firmly cutting off Peter. “I want you to get your ass downstairs and into the car that’s waiting, and I don’t want you to make a single excuse.”

“Alright.” Peter mumbled, forcing himself up to his feet, suddenly his cool Lightsaber arm felt very stupid.

“Thanks for letting me know the situation Fred.” Mr. Stark said, and Peter shot Ned a betrayed look as his friend stared at his feet and avoided Peter’s gaze. “Peter. Car.”

Mr. Stark must have been truly pissed because he had driven himself. There was no Happy in the car for Peter to annoy in the hopes of getting someone to side with him, there was only the emptiness of the back seat as Mr. Stark flew around the empty streets – what time was it? – and headed back towards the tower.

“Your Aunt knows you’re here.” Was all Mr. Stark said as he parked in the underground garage and climbed out the car. It was clear that Peter was expected to follow.

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked quietly.

“ _What_ were you thinking?” Mr. Stark asked, his voice sounding more worried than Peter had ever heard him sound before – and that was including the catastrophic ferry situation.

“I wasn’t.” Peter admitted quietly. “I just thought that I could manage.”

“Peter, you can manage a bruise, you can manage a bloody nose, hell you could probably even manage some minor cuts and abrasions.” Mr. Stark said. “You can _not_ handle a broken bone on your own.”

“We Googled it.”

“No, you acted like an idiot.”

“I don’t think we did a bad job.” Peter mumbled as he followed Mr. Stark along the corridors, trying his best not to think about how every step said spikes of pain through him.

“You’re wearing a Lightsaber!”

“I didn’t really expect you to turn up.” Peter muttered before he could stop himself.

“And isn’t that part of the problem?” Mr. Stark asked. “How many times do I have to tell you that I care about you, Kid? You can and should call me when you need help.”

“I just wanted to prove that I’m not a child who constantly needs someone watching over him.” Peter mumbled.

“You certainly are acting like a child.” Mr. Stark said as they walked into the Med Bay. “Cho!”

“Stark?” Dr Cho appeared from behind a pulled curtain, her eyes instantly landing on Peter’s arm. “I- this is a new one, I have to admit.”

“The Kid broke his arm and decided to try and fix it himself rather than asking for help.” Mr. Stark told her, and Peter couldn’t help but look away when her cool gaze landed on him.

“I think I’ve officially seen it all,” she said, “right come on then, follow me Kid.”

“Pete, I’ll see you in my workshop after.” Mr. Stark said as he turned to leave.

Peter felt a small pang of sorrow as he watched his mentor walk away, was the man really _that_ disappointed in him? so much so that he couldn’t bear to be in the same room? That hurt.

Peter didn’t have much time to think about it thankfully as he ended up being poked and prodded by Dr Cho and put through scans and a plaster cast was put on his arm while she muttered about how lucky he was that his Spider-Man genetics hadn’t started to heal the limb in the wrong position.

So that was how Peter found himself wandering along the corridor towards Mr. Stark’s workshop sporting a bright red cast.

“Mr. Stark?” He asked tentatively as he opened the door.

“Kid, there you are, that took longer than expected.”

“Yeah, we uh, used a little too much duct tape.” Peter admitted as he pulled up a stool beside the older man and let his eyes run over the blueprints in front of him. “You missed a decimal point there.”

“Thanks kiddo.”

“Um, you asked me to come see you?” Peter reminded him cautiously.

“Yeah, I did, I would have stayed with you, but I needed to calm down.” Mr. Stark admitted. “Sometimes I react rashly, rather like you did to your broken arm, and I wanted to think some things through.”

That didn’t sound good. “Think things through?” Peter asked. “Are you firing me?”

“Kid, I never hired you,” Mr. Stark said with a laugh, “but no, you’re not fired.”

They lapsed into silence while Mr. Stark sketched away, Peter knew that the man was trying to word something in his mind and as much as he wanted to know what that something was, he couldn’t do anything but give him time to think it through.

“Do you not trust me?” Mr. Stark asked after a few moments.

“What? Yes, of course I do.”

“Then why didn’t you call?”

“It’s-” Peter flushed red and looked down, “I broke my arm because I was dumb.”

“No doubt,” Mr. Stark muttered, before sighing, “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“I was trying to change out of my Spider-Man suit and I ended up tripping over a can of Coke, it was the sugar free stuff too-”

“Is that important to the story?” Mr. Stark asked.

“Uh, no, but anyways I slipped on the can and fell,” Peter continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “of course I tried to stop myself from falling by shooting a web at the ceiling, but I’d already started changing so I wasn’t wearing my web-shooters.”

“Oh kid.” Mr. Stark mumbled.

“Yeah, so I went down like a lead balloon.” Peter admitted.

“And you landed on your arm?”

“Absolutely,” Peter said, “it really hurt.”

“Kid, you fractured your arm, of course it hurt,” Mr. Stark said, “I just can’t believe you thought you would get away with fixing it up yourself.”

“Ned used a bad website.” Peter decided. “Did you know wearing a sling can freeze your shoulder?”

“Yeah, Kid, I did,” Mr. Stark said, “another reason why you would have been better off coming to me with this.”

Peter appraised Mr. Stark silently for a moment, he really had upset the man by not going to him, hadn’t he? It was about the trust thing that Mr. Stark had mentioned, did he really think Peter didn’t trust him? Looking at him, yes, yes he did.

“Mr. Stark, you know I trust you right?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, course I do.” Mr. Stark muttered without looking up.

“No, really, I do,” Peter said, “after May you’re probably the person I trust the most.”

“Then why did you feel like you couldn’t come to me with this?” Mr. Stark asked.

“It wasn’t that I _couldn’t,”_ Peter told him, “I just didn’t want you to see me as some dumb kid.”

“You didn’t want me to think you were dumb?”

“Yeah, I look up to you, you know?” Peter mumbled, embarrassed. “I didn’t want to deal with you knowing I was so stupid. I’m meant to be Spider-Man and then I go and do _this_ to myself as though I don’t have super-powers.”

“Oh, Kid.” Mr. Stark said quietly before swinging himself around on his stool, so they were facing one another.

“I’m sorry.” Peter said quietly.

“Don’t.” Mr. Stark muttered. “Don’t apologise for that, if you want to say sorry, then say sorry for not getting an adult to help you. Don’t apologise for getting hurt in the first place. You might be Spider-Man but you’re also a kid, and you’re human – despite your abilities – so you can get hurt and you can break bones.”

“But I’m meant to have quick healing.” Peter said.

“Cho called me while you were on your way down here.” Mr. Stark admitted. “She said that if it wasn’t for your Spider abilities you would have likely caused more damage by strapping your arm to a damn _Lightsaber_.”

“Yeah, that seemed like a good idea at the time.” Peter said.

“It wasn’t.” Mr. Stark said.

“yeah, I’m seeing that now.” Peter said with a sigh.

“You’re lucky you didn’t need surgery Kid.”

“I know.”

“Alright, I think that’s enough lecturing for one night,” Mr. Stark said after a second of scrutinising Peter’s face, looking for something that Peter didn’t know of, “c’mere, Kiddo.”

Peter paused for a split second, wondering if the open arms were a trick, before deciding that he didn’t care and with a quiet ‘ow’ as his cast was jostled in his sudden movement, he jumped into the hug.

“Kid, you have to let me be there for you.” Mr. Stark murmured into his hair.

“I know.”

“I’m not good at showing I care,” Mr. Stark admitted, “I usually just make my presence known around the person I care about and then get all mad and angsty whenever they get hurt, but Pepper is showing me that that’s not the best way to go about it. I want you to know that I care about you, I really do, Underoos.”

And peter _knew_ he did.

“I know, I care about you too Tony.”

And if the hug was slightly too tight and sore on his arm, Peter wasn’t going to say anything because he knew that in that moment things had changed, they had become closer than before. Who knew all it would take was a can of Coke and a Lightsaber?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed this silly little fic that randomly came to me when i was sleep deprived! 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought and if you read the other one in this wee series: thank you!! I appreciate all the kudo/comments/bookmarks!! you're all gems! thank you my lovelies! 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr [@ephemeralstark](https://ephemeralstark.tumblr.com/)


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